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We recently announced plans to grow our business through one of the largest-ever mergers in the public relations industry, combining operations with Pleon, Europe’s largest strategic communications consultancy. As a result, we’ve strengthened our position as one of the world’s largest and most geographically diverse public relations agencies and Europe’s leading public relations agency, with more than 45 offices and affiliates in over 25 countries across the Continent.
We work for global clients, UK clients and very local clients. We’re seasoned communicators with backgrounds in journalism, marketing, science, the arts and prison (long story) among many other pertinent areas. We also have some of the best accountants, HR people, IT specialists and caterers helping us around the clock.
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Let's start with a strong opening sentence - I'm fully aware of the fiery pits of scorn that wait for anyone grabbing news items and academic study and linking them with no empirical reasoning.

However, two items flashed up on my newsfeed today that seems so complementary it is difficult to resist presenting them together. If only for some food for thought - remaining critical, of course.

These two items alone are worth reading for any student of communications or anyone who hopes to introduce more science into their work as a communicator. Together, they paint potentially a dark picture of where mass-population influence is actually coming from - and raise the deep question of regulation and oversight of globally accessible media.

The first, a study by Freedom House which explores the increasing rate of manipulation by governments of social and other media. Written up by HelpNet Security here, the report notes "Governments in a total of 30 countries deployed some form of manipulation to distort online information, up from 23 the previous year. Paid commentators, trolls, bots, false news sites, and propaganda outlets were among the techniques used by leaders to inflate their popular support and essentially endorse themselves."

Naturally, we're curious how this may be achieved. Possible answer here?

This paper illustrates the practice of delineating psychological traits from digital footprints (Facebook likes, tweets, online behaviours in general - trackable and quantifiable) and "demonstrates the effectiveness of psychological mass persuasion—that is, the adaptation of persuasive appeals to the psychological characteristics of large groups of individuals with the goal of influencing their behavior."

The paper is available online, and makes for a very interesting read.

All of which raises the question - Where should freedom of speech clash with free will?

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Online manipulation and disinformation tactics played an important role in elections in at least 18 countries over the past year, including the United States, damaging citizens’ ability to choose their leaders based on factual news and authentic debate.